


there is a dog

by Drac



Category: Deadly Premonition | Red Seeds Profile
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 04:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4046569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drac/pseuds/Drac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Forrest looks at the dog, and the dog looks at Forrest. For a moment he almost feels the tug of the Red Tree behind the dog’s eyes, but he doesn’t. It’s a dog. The dog looks at Forrest.</i>
</p><p>In which the Red Tree sends someone to keep an eye on Forrest Kaysen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there is a dog

The sun rises with the birds and the blood and the bodies and there is a dog. The soldiers are talking amongst themselves - terrible business, that, didn’t expect such a strong reaction - we’ll have to get word to the general - I know, God, dreadful. Forrest looks at the dog, and the dog looks at Forrest. For a moment he almost feels the tug of the Red Tree behind the dog’s eyes, but he doesn’t. It’s a dog. The dog looks at Forrest.

‘Where’d this dog come from?’ a pale-haired soldier leans down to pet it before he climbs into his truck. They’re not coming back to Greenvale.

‘Where’d you come from, handsome boy?’ there’s a crowd of soldiers around the dog now, crouched and standing and sitting on their heels. The dog looks at Forrest.

‘You know,’ says one soldier, a youngish chap with an ideal, muscular sort of build, ‘I thought I saw someone on the tower steps last night.’

Silence falls over the assembled group.

‘Like, a lad. A youngish guy, like Baby Yates -’

‘- fuck off -’ says Baby Yates.

‘- I’m serious! White shirt, hat...’

‘I didn’t see anyone,’ says Martin, the commanding officer.

‘Me neither,’ says Baby Yates, ‘not until they started coming up here, at least.’

The muscular guy frowns, stands and walks from the dog.

‘We should get going, company,’ Martin pauses to shake hands with Forrest, ‘Kaysen, it was… interesting to work with you. You put in a good word with the Government, yeah?’

‘Of course,’ says Forrest.

‘Do you suppose we’ll use this against the Reds?’

‘Couldn’t say. Certainly effective, but… well, could be difficult to transport now that we know just how little is needed...’

‘Yeah,’ says Martin, ‘very effective. Right! Company! Move out!’

‘Pfft,’ Baby Yates says, mockingly, ‘what about this dog?’

‘What about it?’

‘It’s a nice dog, yeah?’

‘You can’t keep the dog.’

‘Martin...’

‘No! Get in the truck, Yates.’

‘... sir.’

The last of the trucks roll down the hill from the theatre and out of Greenvale forever, and in the parking lot there is Forrest, and there is the dog.

The dog says, ‘Forrest.’

‘I - wha -’

‘Forrest,’ says the dog. He has a deep voice, like the Red Tree, that doesn’t so much come from the dog as just echo in the recesses of Forrest’s mind, sticky and cloying.

‘Red Tree,’ Forrest says.

‘I come from them,’ says the dog, with a barely perceptible nod.

‘And… do they approve?’

‘No,’ says the dog.

‘What?’

‘You have a weakness for flashiness,’ says the dog, ‘it is tiresome. You threaten our position.’

‘But the body-count!’

‘It will be difficult to hush this up. In the future, we may not even succeed.’

Forrest wipes his hands on his overalls. He’s gotten too comfortable in this unassuming form, and he’s picked up all sorts of human mannerisms. He’s fairly sure that his palms didn’t sweat ten years ago.

‘Okay, message received. Give my apologies to The Tree.’

The dog looks at him strangely.

‘I understand, dog! I’m going to take to the East Coast now, so we don’t have to worry about it getting back to The Tree anytime soon. Go on.’

The dog cocks its head in an entirely doglike manner.

‘No,’ it says, ‘I’m here from The Tree. I have assignments for you.’

Forrest sighs. ‘Assignments.’

‘Yes,’ says the dog, and he hops inside the still-open door of Forrest’s truck.

‘Do you… have a name, dog?’

‘You can call me Willie.’

‘Willie,’ says Forrest, ‘okay.’

-

It’s been fifty long years since Willie insulted Forrest in that parking lot outside the Greenvale Theatre. Forrest has gotten smarter, he’s sure. He’s slowed, true, but The Tree doesn’t seem displeased with him. Willie says that the best crop comes with care, and time. Forrest can understand that.

It does feel, if he’s honest, much too easy these days. So easy to play on barely-repressed desperations; to worm his way into the affections of small-town folk with small-town mentalities. That locket he’d picked up at a fucking gas station had completely unhinged the town’s _sheriff_ \- sometimes it feels like there’s no end to his powers at all. And if he could be so strong; if the seeds could be so strong - why, the Red Tree must be unstoppable.

Forrest didn’t get to see lovely Anna strung up on the tree himself, but the case photographs that George shows him with fake disgust are almost good enough. This is a good one, Forrest tells Willie, years in the making, from Mrs Woodman to George to the pathetic MacLaine boy in his appalling cheap red wig; carrot and string and stick.

Emily Wyatt, though. Forrest can see where George is coming from when she turns her beautiful smile his way. Of course Agent Morgan makes him a little nervous, but there’s nothing than can be pinned on him by a boy without a memory, even one as notorious for pulling accusations out of thin air as our friendly federal agent. There’s nothing of the child that Forrest once met in Morgan’s face - Zach, York, whichever he thinks he is; he does not live there any more.

Anyway, Forrest likes to visit Greenvale even without these incentives. It is a battlefield, a source of old power, and he finds himself drawn to it as though a magnet. Let Willie worry about their conspicuousness; frankly, he thinks it makes them less suspect than unknown travellers passing through. Forrest takes the Ingram children to the community centre to play. Willie is always worrying about the Ingram children.

They’re sweet enough, though, and not quite as bright as people would like to think they are, little hands that worry at their colour-coded shirts, and Forrest longs for the day he can make them hurt.

Isaach puts his little hands on his hips. ‘This is Mommy!’ he says, and wags a finger at his little twin. This is a favourite game of theirs - ‘clean up the store room, Keith!’

‘I’m Daddy - Rock ‘n’ roll, Willie dude!’

‘Rock ‘n’ roll!’ Isaach parrots, laughing gaily, ‘This is Grandad - It’s like fishing, boys!’

It’s nowhere near as funny as the boys find it, but Forrest finds himself chuckling along, regardless.

‘This is the sheriff - That’s enough, Thomas,’ Isaiah holds the brim of his imaginary hat eerily accurately.

‘This is Deputy Thomas!’ says Isaach, and he makes exaggerated retching noises, swaying on his feet, and the twins laugh and laugh and _laugh_.

‘Poor Deputy Thomas,’ says Isaiah, sobering. ‘Mr Kaysen, can you do one?’

Forrest can do one more accurately than anyone, but he keeps that to himself.

‘I don’t know, boys. How about Willie?’ he asks, and the boys clap and giggle. It’s little work to remember how to do this, though it’s been a hundred years or more since he was last a dog, muscle memory takes over and he barks and howls and whines until Isaach falls over laughing.

‘I can do Willie too!’ says Isaiah, and Forrest gives him an encouraging smile.

‘Be careful around those boys,’ says Isaiah, says Willie, and it’s the first time since that first time that Forrest has been afraid of Willie’s heavy, dark voice, ‘be careful, Forrest. They are _sensitive_ , Forrest, we don’t know what they can do. Be careful - be _careful_ , be -’

Isaiah sits down heavily, suddenly exhausted, and Isaach keeps laughing as though nothing has happened. Perhaps nothing _has_ happened.

‘Very good,’ says Kaysen, and he throws a stick for Willie to catch and thinks, fuck, but it’s still too soon for Lilly.

-

In many ways, Willie is glad that Forrest is gone. He’s not being patronised with that dog act anymore, but he is, still, for all intents and purposes, a dog. If his head itches, he scratches it with a back leg. He doesn’t think about these things anymore. Perhaps this is why Forrest learned to sweat.

Still, it’s harder to get around as a lone dog than as an owned dog. Willie finds himself missing his kennel, missing the truck, missing his coffee. Forrest was very good at one thing only, and only then with Willie’s assistance. Willie wonders if The Tree will count this in his bodycount, losing the liability that was Forrest.

Willie wonders if he remembers how to be a man.

For the time being, though, Willie scratches his head with a back leg. The Tree will follow through. The Tree always follows through.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I finished this game about a week ago and I have been fROTHING with ideas since then, I'm very upset. Anyway I... don't really know what this is? I like the idea of Willie as Kaysen's handler, the brains of the duo. And he got away scot-free wtf! tbh i wanna write more about george & his victims but for the time being: here's Kaysen being a semi-immortal prick.
> 
> Why was Kaysen always with the Ingrams?? That messed me up tbh, I always assumed that he was waiting for the perfect time to pull a red tree scumlord moment on poor Lilly, and that just isn't on. ProteCT INGRAMS


End file.
